Thursday, March 27, 2008

the Creation of God and His One Eternal Purpose - Part I

Christian greetings in the precious Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are pleased you could join us in fellowship around God's unchanging Word.

There is no such thing as "God in three persons, blessed Trinity," or a "blessed three in One," for God is One person making Himself manifest in "thousand thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand" in One by His Word, which is Spirit in a form we can receive by faith (Daniel 7:10; Revelation 5:11; 9:16). This was Jesus' prayer in the garden of Gethsemane (John 17:20-26). The greatest revelation is the supreme Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our main article in this issue lays a Scriptural foundation teaching "The Creation of God and His One Eternal Purpose," which explains the Bible as the story of God unfolding Himself or changing His form from the eternal Spirit—alone with His thoughts—to the manifestation of those thoughts in the flesh of His glorified Family.

After you have proven this teaching in your own Bible and found it helpful, please forward it to friends who may be loosed from chains of denominational traditions if they read and understand its Message (John 8:32).

This Newsletter serves those of like precious faith. Whoever will receive the truth is welcome to feed their soul from the waters of the River of Life. Everything here presented should be confirmed personally in your own Bible.

Iran a Nuclear Threat, Bush InsistsMarch 21, 2008 – The president spoke in an interview intended to reach out to the Iranian public on the Persian new year and to express "moral support" for struggling freedom movements, particularly among youth and women. It was designed to stress US support for Iran's quest for nuclear energy and the prospects that Washington and Tehran can "reconcile their differences" if Iran cooperates with the international community to ensure that the effort is not converted into a weapons program.

But most striking was Bush's accusation that Iran has openly declared its nuclear weapons intentions, even though a National Intelligence Estimate concluded in December that Iran had stopped its weapons program in 2003, a major reversal in the long-standing US assessment. "They've declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people—some in the Middle East. And that's unacceptable to the United States, and it's unacceptable to the world," Bush told US-funded Radio Farda, which broadcasts into Iran in Farsi.

Experts on Iran and nuclear proliferation said the president's statement was wrong. "That's as uninformed as [Sen. John] McCain's statement that Iran is training al-Qaeda. Iran has never said it wanted a nuclear weapon for any reason. It's just not true. It's a little troubling that the president and the leading Republican candidate are both so wrong about Iran. . ." Full story: truthout.org

Comment: Everything is running according to plan. A statement by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan confirms, 'the City' has created division among Muslims in the Middle East; UN "peacekeepers"—and in Newspeak "peace" means "war"—are overextended and unable to take over US mayhem in Afghanistan or Iraq, much less Iran. The men from "Uncle" have created intentional chaos from which they plan to establish Lucifer's new worldly order. George II must make his move before his term expires.

The Gentlemen's BailoutMarch 20, 2008 – The Federal Reserve's announcement of an open-ended bail-out for Wall Street's endangered financial firms and banks opens an ominous new chapter in what might be called "market socialism with American characteristics." If Washington tries to do something for "losers" who are ordinary citizens, financial titans complain about violating free-market principles. When the titans themselves are going down, they rush to their patrons at the central bank and demand extraordinary relief. Government must save the big money, we are told, for the overall good of the economy. Thus, the financial system's reckless losses—approaching $1 trillion but probably far more—are being "socialized," dumped on the public, the very people victimized by its snares and falsified valuations.

Put aside the obvious hypocrisy and greed. This nation is on the brink of a historic catastrophe. It requires emergency responses from the federal government on a scale not seen since the Great Depression and the New Deal, the subject of this special issue. Yet the rescue party is composed of the same people who co-wrote this disaster. They are, first, the financiers who indulged their own appetites for extreme wealth and enlarged a financial system of esoteric fakery that inflated prices and profits. Second, the close collaborators were the Federal Reserve and other authorities who blessed this dangerous concoction and declined to enforce prudential standards.

Now the hoax is falling apart. Many millions of innocents, here and around the world, will suffer painful consequences. The authorities, meanwhile, are trying to "save the system" by propping up failure. . . Full story: thenation.com

Comment: This is what Brother Branham said in 1963 with respect to the oncoming collapse of the US dollar, world financial system and economy: "I believe the time will come when we're forced to make the issue. And when it will be, that instead of us changing the currency. . . What would that do to the Philip Morris? What would that do to the whiskey companies? What would that do to the steel industry? What would that do to all the commerce? . . . It would break them. They'd be broke. But if we can borrow that money. . . See how smart he is? Then the nation sells out to the church and then church and state is united again, and there she comes. See? That's it (COD, p. 506:3).

Brother Branham's 1933 Vision In 1933 the Lord showed Brother Branham seven continuous visions. The fourth vision said, "And it shall come to pass, that before the end time shall come, that automobiles will take on the shape of an egg, become more like an egg. And I saw an American family driving down a highway in a car that. . . They were setting facing one another, and had a table, and were, look like, playing checkers or cards. And they didn't have any steering wheel in the car. And it was controlled by some power without a steering wheel. How many remembers me prophesying that"? (COD, p. 923:17; The Boy Scouts of America Boy's Life Magazine, October 1990).

Mr. Death: the Rise and Fall of Fred A Leuchter Jr."Mr. Death" is a stylized documentary that deals with the life and work of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr., a US Federal Court qualified expert in execution technology. On the basis of his qualifications, in 1988 Leuchter was commissioned by German-Canadian publisher Ernst Zundel to conduct the first thorough forensic examination of the alleged Nazi gas chambers at Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland. After Leuchter testified that the alleged facilities were not—and could not have been— used for mass extermination, Jewish activists ruined his life.

Leuchter comes across just as straightforward and guileless on film as he is in real life. As a result, some viewers of earlier versions at the Sundance Festival, the Toronto Film Festival and Harvard University began to question the Holocaust extermination stories they'd been told, while others suspected that Morris himself might have been converted to Holocaust revisionism. At the eleventh hour, Morris re-edited the film in an effort to emphasize his anti-revisionist point of view. Character assassination aside, the question remains as to whether or not Leuchter's findings regarding the alleged Nazi gas chambers at Auschwitz and Birkenau are correct. Full story: video.google.com (1 hr. 31 mins).

Comment: Truth does not need prevarication! "Camp museum officials have downwardly revised the Auschwitz death toll from four million in 1945 to just over one million in 2005. According to Russian archives, the real number of inmates who died there was 73,137 and the gas chamber you see on show today was built in 1948 to back up the Shoah narrative, which stipulates a 'holocaust', meaning a 'burnt offering' as a sacrifice to their conception of God. . . The sacred number cannot be abnegated, for it is upon that Kabbalistic figure that the state of Israel derives its mystical, Judeo-Masonic justification." See truthtellers.org.

The Ruthless American EmpireMarch 14, 2008 – [W]hy has this country been instrumental in bringing down close to 50 governments of other nations? Why did we finance the overthrow of Hugo Chavez in 2002 only to see his people rise up and re-install him? Why is Hugo Chavez, a man that works for the poorest of his country, so savagely attacked by the Empire? The reason is because like Fidel Castro, he won't play the Washington game. He won't sell his nation's resources to the Empire for pennies on the dollar. Is he a threat to you? Is he a threat to any average American? The answer is obvious, but he is a threat to the multi-national oil cartel. The people controlling this Empire's government will tell you any number of lies to watch out for their interests.

Why are we fighting in Iraq? Were we ever afraid of Saddam? Give me a break. We are fighting over there to pay for Lockheed-Martin and all the other defense contractors' budgets. We are in Iraq to give the Empire military bases to control the Persian Gulf and to assert our presence to insure our interests. We care not for the people of Iraq, nor do we care for the soldiers that die on command. This is just another example of Empire at its most malicious. Killing, according to some estimates, over a million Iraqi's and almost 4,000 American soldiers that die on the ground, soldiers who died in the air on a medi-vac didn't make the count. We have destroyed their infrastructure and now pay Halliburton, Cheney's company, to put the country back together with no-bid contracts.

We threaten Iran with attack for having the audacity to build a nuclear power reactor. The Empire which once overthrew their infant democracy and re-installed the Shah, now tells the people of Iran what they can and cannot do. Meanwhile the Empire is selling nuclear secrets to India and Turkey and is the world's foremost owner of nuclear weaponry. How insane is this logic? . . Full story: plutocracyagainstdemocracy Comment: Revelation 13:11-18.

The Holy Bible is the story of God unfolding Himself or changing His form from the eternal Spirit alone with His thoughts—through faith in the spoken Word—to the manifestation of those thoughts in the flesh of His glorified Family, of whom Jesus Christ is firstborn.

The Logos and God: John 1:1-2, "In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God Himself. He existed in the beginning with God" — as His eternal thoughts, which are the Attributes of Himself.

What was God doing in eternity before material creation? As these two verses explain, God was thinking (Psalm 119:89). God was alone with His thoughts. Verse one reveals the Logos is eternal with God, did not "become" God but is God and therefore Divine, whereas verse two demonstrates the true Oneness—not twoness or threeness—of the godhead.

Let me ask you, "Are the thoughts of God eternal?" If you can see this, you will see many things. God is unchangeable in both essence and behavior. . . God is infinite in His abilities so therefore He as God must be omniscient. If He is omniscient, then He is not now learning, nor is He taking counsel even with Himself, nor is He at any time adding to His knowledge (William Branham, An Exposition of the Seven Church Ages, p. 149:3).

His thoughts are eternal and they are real and will come to pass in their designated and decreed season and time. A word is a thought when it is expressed and the Greek word Logos means "thought in speech," or concept. But God cannot speak without the faculty of reason, nor think without words in His mind, whether uttered or not, so before time began God was alone with the sum of all wisdom and knowledge—plus His eternal thoughts yet unexpressed in creation.

Proverbs 23:7, "As one thinks in his heart, so is he." Therefore God's thoughts are the Attributes of what He is, what He will be and what He will be understood to be. They are His glory. The unseen God began gathering glory to Himself by manifesting the Logos (John 17:5; I John 1:1-2). Were we able to look back to the beginning with eyes of Supernatural seeing we would see a small Light forming. God was giving birth to His Son. It was the visible manifestation of the Logos Ezekiel described as "the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord" or Shekinah.

Simultaneously material creation began to manifest ex nihilo as an immense fiery Sun was born, ejecting parts of itself into space to conceive the planets, stars and suns of countless galaxies as the Shekinah has divides and emptied itself (Gk. 'kenos') into God's children from the inauguration of Christ's Church on the day of Pentecost.

The Logos and the World: John 1:3, "Through Him everything came into being and nothing that exists came into being except through Him".

The Logos was from eternity and is the source of the beginning. If He did not have eternal existence before the beginning, there could have been no beginning (Colossians 1:16-19; Psalm 33:6). He was the Shekinah Light and glory of God that shone in the darkness of chaos, the principle that commanded order (Genesis 1:1-2).

The Logos and Mankind: John 1:4, "In Him is pure Life; and the Life was the Light of men".

God and the Logos are eternal Spirit, and as we read in Hebrews 7:3, "Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life. . ." Although it is true, when the Logos manifest as Light at creation God was giving birth to His Son. On the other hand "God is not a man, that He should lie; or a son of man, that He should change His mind (Malachi 3:6; Numbers 23:19), but Jesus was a Man "born of a virgin;" He had both father and mother, a time He began, and a time when He died. Now He is alive forevermore.

The key word to understanding Jesus Messiah and the great eternal Spirit is "manifestation." The Logos was from eternity and the fullness of the nature and character of God were manifest in that Man from Galilee. Colossians 2:9-10, "In Christ dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And you are complete in Him, who is the Head of all principality and authority".

There is only one eternal, and that is God. If you have eternal Life you always were eternal as an Attribute of God in Christ the Logos, though not expressed until your designated and decreed season and time to act out or manifest the Word for your day (II Corinthians 3:1-5; Ephesians 1:4; Revelation 3:14). Whereas Jesus was given the Spirit in unlimited measure (John 3:34) to "declare" or unveil God in His Life and teachings, we have the Spirit by measure. So all of His Attributes God poured or transformed ('kenos') into Christ, and all Christ is He is pouring or transforming into the corporate Body of His Church. Thus the fullness of God's Attributes are manifest in the many membered Bride of all Ages as they are in our Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. And in the new heavens and new earth God will be worshipped throughout eternity in the form of His glorified Family, Jesus Christ and His Bride. Together, we are the hidden being of God manifest (I John 1:2).

The Logos and Sin: John 1:5, "His Life is the Light that shines through the darkness; and the darkness has never overpowered, extinguished, or comprehended the revelation."

Since Darkness has been unable to destroy the Life, it has also been unable to destroy the Light in the Life, thus the Light continues to shine from the beginning until now. The Light of Life overpowered the darkness and chaos to introduce order in the natural creation. But Darkness entered as the hostile counterpart of Light at the Fall when Eve was deceived by Lucifer's lie. As the Light is Truth, so the Darkness is falsehood (John 8:44), the positive perversion of the truth in delusion (II Thessalonians 2:10-12). Then the Logos was made flesh in "the beginning of God creating Himself" a part of the moral creation (Revelation 3:14) with the incarnation of the first God-Man, who overcome spiritual Darkness: "You shall know the Light of Truth and the Truth shall set you free."

Sinful man rejected the Light. In Romans 1:14-36 Paul explains how the mass of Gentiles as well as Israelites rejected the preparatory revelations of the Logos, and "the Light shining in Darkness." The reason is indicated in John 3:19-21, "This is the condemnation, that Light is come into the world, and men loved Darkness rather than Light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that does evil hates the Light, neither comes to the Light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that does Truth comes to the Light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God".

The natural creation and the moral or Spiritual creation will be harmonised in a renewed heavens and renewed earth. There Darkness will be banished from the pyramid city of New Jerusalem which will be overshadowed by the Shekinah such that there will be eternal day.

In John 1:6-15, John the Baptist types the Old Testament revelation, which directly prepared the way for the Christian dispensation. His ministry introduced "the Son of God who was manifested to destroy the works of the Devil" (I John 3:8).

"There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came for a witness, to testify regarding the Light, that all might believe through him. He was not himself that Light, but came to bear witness to that Light. The true Light that illumines every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, yet the world knew Him not. He came to His own, and His own received Him not. But to all who did receive Him, he granted authority to become the Sons of God, that is, to those who believe in His Name: who owe their birth neither to human blood, nor to physical urge, nor to human design, but to God. And the Logos became man, and lived for a time among us, and we saw His glory—such glory as an only son receives from his father—abounding in grace and truth. John testified about Him, and cried, This is the One of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks before me, for He was before me'."

Indeed He was; although John was six months his Cousins' senior, Jesus was the eternal God manifest in flesh (John 8:58). The Gospels of Matthew and Luke begin with Christ's incarnation in time, His human (Book of Life) generation and history, whereas John gives His eternal (Lamb's Book of Life) generation. (In the prophecy of Micah 5:2 concerning the "Ruler in Israel who would come out of Bethlehem, whose goings forth have been of old, from everlasting" we see both together). John rises above their Gospels in pointing out a Christological theocracy and the universality of the incarnate Logos, which by its one manifestation in Man born of woman, embraces time and eternity, heaven and earth, uniting Deity and humanity (II Corinthians 5:18; Colossians 3:10; Revelation 3:14).

The manifestation of Jehovah develops from the Tree of Life in the garden of Eden (Genesis 2:17; 3:8-24), to Melchisedek (Genesis 14:18; 18:1-33), to the Angel of the Lord (Genesis 16:7-9), later designated as the Angel of the Presence (Exodus 32:34; 33:14; Isaiah 63:9), and finally, the Angel of the Covenant. This Angel is the theophany of Christ as is evident especially from Malachi 3:1 as the Angel of the Covenant denotes Messiah. As the personal pre-manifestaton of Christ in the theophanies of the Logos, the Angel of the Lord is also characterized by His standing in the closest connection with the honour or glory of God (Luke 2:9); in fact being identified with it (Exodus 16:10; 24:16). It is all synthesised in Christ, and Christ is the Logos manifesting the fullness of the nature and character of God. God and His eternal thoughts are not two people or two gods any more than you and your thoughts are two persons. One is a sensible expression or visible manifestation of the invisible Other.

Laying aside the Law, which came four hundred and thirty years after and cannot invalidate a Covenant previously ratified by God, so as to annul His promise to Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3; Galatians 3:17), the development of the Old Testament idea of Jehovah manifest in Messiah separated the race of Cain from Adam's race in Genesis 3:15 and again in 9:25 and 15-19. Here He selected the Semitic line, later the clan of Eber from among whom He chose the family of Abraham and his seed through Isaac and Jacob, and particularly the tribe of Judah (49:10). This was further defined to the house of David, a type of Messiah (II Samuel 7:12-17), whose antitype would fulfil the qualifications of Isaiah 9.

As the idea of the revelation of Jehovah works toward incarnation, the idea of Messiah strives toward human union with the "divine nature" (John 1:14; II Peter 1:4); and the union is effected in Isaiah 9 where the ideal Messiah comes to view; the Messiah has become the Angel of the Lord (Isaiah 61:1-2), and the Angel of the Lord has become the Messiah (Daniel 7:13; Malachi 3:1).

With the words, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me," (Isaiah 61:1), the Subject of the prophecy attributes to Himself what Jehovah has declared of His Servant in Isaiah 42:1, "I have put My Spirit upon Him" and what had already been declared of the root of Jesse, "The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him" (Isaiah 11:1-2). The Servant of Jehovah is Messiah, the anointed One.

Since the idea of revelation is based on the development of redemption, so the Messiah, as personal revelation is also personal Redeemer. "By grace through faith are you saved." As such Messiah has to fight and conquer; to work and struggle; to suffer, and in sinking to overcome. From this point of view the Son of God is the Servant of God who will destroy the Edomite Jews and redeem the elect of Israel (Isaiah 63).

Brother Branham frequently referred to Isaiah 6, which was Isaiah's sole vision, a vision of our glorified Lord Jesus Christ and His Bride in theophany. The scene is set after the Church is finished, between Revelation 4 and 19. "In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple." Uzziah, meaning "my strength is Jehovah," ran well until his latter years when he sought to make himself high priest like the Egyptian kings, and so combine in himself all civil and religious power. When he attempted to burn incense in the holy place, the Lord smote him and he died of incurable leprosy. He types the Laodicean Church Age that commenced with the Azusa Street Revival and swept the world with revival meetings, signs and wonders, but was unable to receive the Word of correction and ended in apostasy to be followed by an earthquake as in the days of Uzziah (Amos 1:1; Zechariah 14:5).

Brother Branham said "His train" represents the angels who follow Him, and the angels in Revelation 5 are the theophanies of the glorified Bride of all Ages, for Isaiah, Ezekiel and John saw the same vision. Indeed, together with the Headstone we are God's Temple, and will be overshadowed by the Shekinah in the new heavens and new earth when "the whole earth is full of His glory" (Isaiah 6:3; 11:9; Habakkuk 2:14). Having claimed the Book they crown Him King of kings by revelation (Revelation 5:7-13). This is the commencement of the Bride Age or present holy convocation of the fiftieth day of the Pentecostal Feast. It is the "silence in heaven about the space of half an hour" (Revelation 8:1). (And as you can see, at the close of the Laodicean Church Age redemption was over as the Prophet explained in COD p. 846:Q195-196, because Christ's end-time Bride being predestinated to receive the fullness of the Word, does not require mediation; therefore she was fully redeemed in Christ on Calvary).

Isaiah's vision of the Lord Jesus and the Seraphim is parallel to Brother Branham's experience on Sunset Mountain where He was caught up into a pyramid constellation of the Seraphim which became the Supernatural Cloud, "high and lifted up," the sign of Christ's imminent parousia (Matthew 24:3). Or when John, who represents Christ's end-time Bride throughout the Book of Revelation, was caught up in the Spirit into the day of the Lord to see the heavenly transactions of Revelation 4 and 5. It was not the Holy of Holies of the earthly temple that Isaiah saw, for he was not a priest and it was veiled from all but the high priest; besides, he does not describe the Ark of the Covenant, which was certainly not "high and lifted up." His vision was of the heavenly temple which is the pattern for the Tabernacle and afterwards the temple.

The Seraphim were incense-burners and throne guards that come in closest proximity to the Lord, more intimate than the Cherubim or temple guards that symbolise the 144,000. I believe they are the heavenly representations of the seven earthly angels to the Church and perhaps Moses and Elijah. Their Voice shook the temple to its foundations as the Voice of the Seven Thunders shook heaven and earth spiritually (Hebrews 12:26; Revelation 10:1-4), and will do so physically when the earthquake sinks Los Angeles and Satan is cast down to earth (Revelation 12:7-16; 18:21-24). So the "heavenquake" that moved the sanctuary in Isaiah's vision has its counterpart with the earthquake at the end of the silence in heaven about the space of half an hour when the smoke of the revelation of the Seven Thunder mysteries added to the prayers of all of the New Testament saints ascends to God, and His judgments "smite the earth with a curse" (Revelation 8:1-5).

The heavenly temple has been "filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from His power" since Pentecost; "and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled" (Revelation 15:8). These bowls full of plagues poured out upon the non-elect church to distinguish the righteous from the unfaithful, mirror Israel's ordeal of jealousy. Smoke is the antithesis of Light; it signifies the severity of the wrath of God on a Christ-rejecting people and induces the consciousness of sin, mortal fear, and confession on the part of Isaiah. "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts"—our Lord Jesus Christ.

John 12:35-41 refers to Isaiah's vision and says expressly Isaiah saw the glory of Jesus when He heard the Words of Isaiah 6:10. He accords with I Peter 1:11, which says, that the Spirit that moved on the Old Testament prophets was the Spirit of Christ; and with I Corinthians 10:4, which says it was Christ that as a Spiritual rock led Israel through the wilderness. "Jesus told the people, My Light will shine out for you just a little longer. Walk while you have the Light, so that the Darkness may not overtake you: for he who walks in darkness does not know where he goes. While you have the Light, put faith in the Light, that you may become Sons of the Light."

"When Jesus had said this, He departed and hid Himself from the people. In spite of all the miracles He had done in their presence, they put no faith in Him, in order that the saying of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, 'Lord, who has believed our Message? and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?' Therefore they could not believe, for again Isaiah said, 'He has blinded their eyes, and calloused their heart; so that they may neither see with their eyes nor perceive with their heart and turn to Me in repentance for Me to heal them'. Isaiah said this because he saw His glory and spoke of Him." Christ is the glory of God, and we, "His train," is the glory of Christ (Hebrews 1:3; I Corinthians 11:7).

(Before His ascent from the mount of Olives "Jesus opened the understanding of His disciples, that they might understand the Scriptures," so John knew what he was saying).

This passage is repeated in Matthew 13:13-15, Mark 4:11-12, and Luke 8:9-10 where it is applied to the fact that Jesus always spoke to the people in parables. Thereby the prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled. God is known by revelation alone, not by a recitation of the "letter" of the prophets, at which the priests of Israel and rabbis of the Jews were proficient; or by a recitation of the "letter" of Brother Branham's quotes—"what the tapes say," which is equally deadly without the Spirit. Had Jesus not spoken in parables his hearers would have memory but not faith, and no condition of responsibility on their part. But by speaking in parables his discourse penetrated the hearts of those ordained to understand and made them responsible to manifest the understanding in their lives.

Brother Branham, whose ministry revealed Jesus Christ (Luke 17:28-30), said that like Jesus (Matthew 28:19; John 6:53), his Message was delivered in such a way as to sift and "thin down" the crowds. Israel could not believe in Jesus (Matthew 8:10; Luke 7:9). Regardless of the signs He did they were not susceptible to faith; neither could the Gentile denominations believe the revelation of the Son of man in Brother Branham's ministry. Finally, in Acts 28:25-26, Paul quoted this passage to prove the general insusceptibility of Israel to the preaching of the Gospel. Paul attributes the voice Isaiah heard as the Holy Ghost, demonstrating that the Holy Ghost is Christ as confirmed by John 14:15-27.

Isaiah never spoke the words we read in verse 9. This was God's commission to His prophet, which we might paraphrase, "Whatever you preach to this people, speak not in hopes of your Message being understood and regarded, but in the consciousness that your words will be neither understood nor regarded, and like Moses' Message to pharaoh, it will serve to completely unfold the hardness of heart that exists in them, and be a witness against them and basis of Judgment. There is therefore great consolation for Isaiah in this commandant, for he will see that his labour, rather than being vain, is fulfilling the expectation of the Lord.

Romans 11:32, II Thessalonians 2:1-13, II Timothy 3-4, and Revelation 3:17-20 confirm that Brother Branham's commission was to minister a Message that would sift an election from among professing believers (Matthew 25:6; I Thessalonians 4:16; Revelation 18:4) by the yardstick of God's unchanging Word (Malachi 4:4-6; Revelation 10:7; I Corinthians 13:10). His Message also brought an indictment: all who fail to receive it will be cast into the tribulation and judged (Malachi 4:6; Matthew 22:13; Luke 17:26-30; Acts 3:23; Revelation 22:10-19).

Isaiah 6:10, "Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed".

This announcement of the judgment of hardening sounds absolute, yet it is impossible that the Lord should forever reject His people, and abrogate the promises given to the fathers. Therefore Isaiah asks, "Lord, for how long will you harden Israel's heart to Your Word"? His answer is, until there is an entire desolation and depopulation of the land; and when at last only a tenth of the inhabitants is in the land, that tenth part also must be decimated until nothing is left but the stump of a root, that shall be the seed from which a holy remnant of 144,000 elect Israelites will be purged in the time of "Jacob's trouble" when they will recognize it was God, the Logos manifest in virgin-born flesh whom their forefathers crucified, not a second or third person (Isaiah 6:11-13; Malachi 3:13-18).

In the Word of God, therefore, God is first, and before all.

"THUS SAITH THE LORD, the King of Israel, And His Redeemer the Lord of hosts: I am the first, and I am the last; And beside Me there is no God" (Isaiah 44:6).

"Hearken unto Me, O Jacob, and Israel My called;I am He; I am the first, I also am the last. My hand also has laid the foundation of the earth,And My right hand has spanned the heavens" (Isaiah 48:12-13).

"THUS SAITH THE LORD, your Redeemer, and He who formed you from the womb, I am the Lord who makes all things; Who stretched forth the heavens alone; Who spread abroad the earth by Myself" (Isaiah 44:24).

"Before Me there was no God formed, Neither shall there be after Me. I, even, I, am the Lord; And beside Me there is no Saviour" (Isaiah 43:10-11).

"I am Alpha and Omega, The first and the last" (Revelation 1:11,17, 2:8, 22:13).

Thus Jehovah emphasizes this great foundation truth. All must be confusion where man refuses to recognised it. All must be peace where it is owned. The first is the only one. There cannot be two firsts or three as the Trinity would suppose. Man ignorantly speaks of the "two first," or the "three first," when he really means the first two, or the first three, etc. The Word of God does not thus ignorantly speak. He is the only one. He is first in priority of time. He is first in superiority of rank, and He is first in absolute supremacy.

Redemption and salvation began with God. His was the Word which first revealed it (Genesis 3:15). His was the will which first purposed it (Hebrews 10:7). His was the power that alone accomplished it. Hence "Salvation is of the Lord" (Exodus 14:13; II Chronicles 20:17; Jonah 2:9). His is the will from which it all proceeds. "Lo, I come to do Your will," said the Redeemer (Psalm 40:7-8; Hebrews 10:7) when He came to do that "will." The "will" is the Logos, and the Redeemer is the Logos manifest in virgin-born flesh.

Revelation 3:14, "To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: THUS SAITH THE AMEN, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God." Jesus gives us one final look at His own gracious and supreme Deity. This is the capstone revelation of Himself.

THUS SAITH THE "AMEN." Jesus is the Amen of God. Jesus is the "So Let It Be" of God. Amen stands for finality. It stands for approval. It stands for prevailing promise. It stands for unchanging promise. It stands for the seal of God. . . When the day of grace closes, then the millennium comes very shortly thereafter.

Regarding the Millennium Isaiah 65:16 says, "He who blesses himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth..." But the real translation is not "God of truth." It is "God of the AMEN". . . Here is Jehovah of the Old Testament, "the God of the Amen." Here is Jesus of the New Testament, "the God of the Amen." There it is again, the Jehovah of the Old Testament is the Jesus of the New. "Hear, Oh, Israel the Lord thy God is ONE God." The New Testament does not reveal ANOTHER God, it is a further revelation of ONE AND THE SAME GOD. Christ did not come down to make Himself known. He did not come to reveal the Son. He came to reveal and make known the Father. He never talked about two Gods; He talked about ONE God. And now in this last age, we have come back to the capstone revelation, the most important revelation of Godhead in the whole Bible, that is, JESUS IS GOD, HE AND THE FATHER ARE ONE: THERE IS ONE GOD, AND HIS NAME IS LORD JESUS CHRIST" (William Branham, An Exposition of the Seven Church Ages, p. 331:4 - 333:2).

In these last days Christ's Bride has seen the Logos revealed in the Office of Son of man, performing the same signs and wonders in the ministry of William Branham as He did in the days of His flesh to awaken the sleeping virgin and call the wise into the unity of the faith for the manifestation of the Sons of God and the translation. nl520.htm

Pass it on . . . please send this article to someone you knowBrother Grigor-Scott is a non-denominational minister who has ministered full-time since 1981, primarily to other ministers and their congregations in other countries. He pastors Bible Believers' tiny congregation, and is available to teach in your church.